A growing number of immigrants and workers are deciding to leave the city as the regional conflict escalates.
Companies are paying tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to evacuate employees from Dubai, while the costs of private jets and rental cars have risen significantly, according to insurance companies.
As the conflict enters its fifth day and some Emirates Airways flights are resuming after a several-day suspension, more and more residents and workers are looking to leave Dubai, according to travel agents, insurance companies and people in the region.
The total cost to evacuate a family of two adults and two children is up to $250,000, one insurance company said, for cases where employees use private jets. Prices for charter flights have nearly doubled since the weekend.
The cost of hiring a taxi or private minibus to travel from Dubai to Muscat in Oman or Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, the two most popular destinations for those leaving the city, has risen to thousands of dollars, from just a few hundred before the weekend.
“We’ve seen taxi fares starting at $5,000 and up,” said one insurance industry executive. “The big problem is that the evacuation advice from the U.S. State Department says to leave using commercially available means, but there are currently very few such means.”
As businesses in the region are asking employees to work remotely, a growing number of residents, tourists and migrants are trying to leave as the conflict shows no signs of abating.
Daria Guristrimba, who runs the Globe7 travel agency for wealthy clients and has clients in the region, said: “People were staying until Tuesday, they were relatively calm and said they wouldn’t leave. Now everyone understands that this is going to last. Now people are leaving for Oman and leaving the country.”
There are other signs that long-established families are leaving the region.
“We’ve seen a huge spike in pet-on-board requests over the past 24 hours as families living in the region make the decision to leave altogether,” said Charles Robinson, founder of EnterJet. “They can’t leave their pets at home and transporting them on commercial flights is not an option.”
Flights from the region are limited, although some have resumed to and from Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Emirates, Flydubai and Etihad are operating some flights to repatriate passengers but said regular services remain suspended. Qatar Airways flights remain grounded as Qatari airspace is closed, while tens of thousands of passengers due to fly out of major airports in the region remain stranded.
Governments including the UK, France, Germany and Italy are organising repatriation flights to bring their citizens home. Air France and KLM each operated a repatriation flight from Muscat on Tuesday, the airline group said.
Lufthansa will operate a flight from Muscat for the German government on Wednesday evening, while British Airways said it plans to operate a flight from Muscat on Thursday, with the possibility of other flights in the coming days.
Virgin Atlantic, which on Tuesday became the first European airline to resume its scheduled service to Dubai, had one flight to the Emirates and another to Riyadh overnight. Both planes were full and will return to the UK carrying passengers, the airline said on Wednesday.
Both commercial and charter flights were departing from Muscat on Wednesday morning, according to data from Flightradar24. The base in Oman has become a major point for people trying to leave Dubai itself, as the border remains open and border guards are lifting visa requirements, according to several people who have crossed since the weekend./Financial Times/
